Monthly archives for January, 2017

The Disney studio’s first career milestone was Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie in 1929. Not the first sound cartoon, but the first to have a post-synchronized soundtrack of dialogue, music and sound effects.

Disney’s chief rivals at the time were the Fleischer brothers Max and Dave. Working out of New York, the Fleischer’s were true animation pioneers who had established their studio before him and had invented the process called “Rotoscoping” –where animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame.

Disney would later raid Fleischer’s studio and take many of his best artists.

Walt was very shrewd and smart enough to know that he needed to have the best animation talent available, to become the best and most profitable animation studio. He also decided at the very beginning, that no one was going to get credit for anything except him. That’s how he got to personally win so many Academy awards,

One of the contradictions about Walt is that being a well known ultra-conservative and fervent anti-communist, through the 1940’s he primarily voted for Democrats. Later on, he was a big supporter of Richard Nixon and George Murphy. Yes he was an active FBI informant and a friendly witness before the House on Un-American Activities Committee.

A position, that was re-enforced after losing the 1941 bitter strike at his studio, when the government arbitrator ruled in the animators favor.

Feeling betrayed by his workers and not being able to handle the direct confrontation of the situation, he accepted the government’s invitation to go on a good will tour of South America.

He left his brother Roy and his studio attorney to face the music. Like any savvy politician, Walt liked controlled environments and dialogue. Above all else, his pristine whiter than white image had to be preserved at all costs.

As the years went by, it became an over-riding obsession for Disney and his staff to maintain and perpetuate that shining image of family values and virtues.

Walt had created his own world both physically and mentally.

A perfectionist by nature, he was obsessive in cleanliness –a trait that became evident to anyone who visited Disneyland for many years.

His mind had to be challenged and entertained. From animation, his focus would go on to live-action, then television, Disneyland, Worlds Fair, Epcot. Like Thomas Edison, he was always looking to do something new and innovative. And like Edison, he was not one to offer praise –ever!

Even his famed “nine old men”, the animators who were with him all along and his closest disciples as it were, even they will tell you “Walt only praised behind your back.” And that was only for effect, to stimulate competition and ideas. He was not an easy man to work for or in some cases to like, but still he was surrounded by people that were totally devoted and loyal to him.

The people that accepted him on his terms and conditions wanted to be a part of his vision and were willing to be totally non-judgmental and compliant. Now remembering that up until the mid 1950’s, you worked a six-day work for regular pay. Hand-drawn animation was very labor intensive. Most of the agonizingly repetitive work was done by women.

As evidenced by one of Disney’s behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of Snow White. They were supervised in an environment that made the staunch Bell phone company of the time, look totally liberal by comparison.

Strict dress code, timed breaks including the bathroom and not even the slightest flirting or mixing with then men. Another contradiction –the guys could not have facial hair, even though their boss was famous for his pencil-mustache.

No alcohol, an immediate fire-able offensive no matter what your job was. Naturally Walt was exempt and in later years his drinking intensified. It’s hard to imagine that a man, who could be so inspirational and inspiring, could have a drinking problem and suffer from depression.

This is where so many cannot accept that fact or even consider it for a second. Total denial by a blind faith that tells them he was a saint. He did create everything. He was the one and only one that filled their childhood dreams. Anything remotely negative or critical of Walt Disney, is seen by many as unholy, as spitting on the flag or to use the old damning word, of being “un-American”.

We talk about some people and even ourselves as being in our own world – well if there was ever someone who spent his whole life in his own world – it’s Walt Disney.

Unlike all the rest of us though, he would not just simply talk or dream about it –he went out and made it happen. As one of the greatest iconic names to come out of the 20th century, he was also one of its greatest self-promoters, if not the greatest. Whether you grew up with his animation on the silver screen, tuned-in to his weekly TV show or visited one of his theme parks.

The Disney name was everywhere, in every part of the world and on scores of products that you just felt compelled to buy. Even in death, his name and his influence is still very much alive. He commands a reverence that even a saint would envy.

But Walt Disney despite all the praise and bally-hoo -was no saint. He was just a man. A man who as you’re about to discover, was full of the same contradictions and complexities as the rest of us.

I never personally met this very special man, but as a life-long admirer and Hollywood historian, I feel I’ve come to know him. Not being influenced or blinded by the sheer scope of his achievements, I’d like to offer my own personal take on his life, putting it into a more human perspective or scale, that also reflects the era in which he lived as much as the impact he had on it.

As a cartoonist or animator, Walt Disney would probably be rated as just fair. I’ll not go into all his early history and biographical detail, for that I refer you to the numerous sources. Those historically accurate perspectives are more than valid, but they generally have to follow an approach that doesn’t conflict with the studio’s mythical and almost religious devotion to its founder and greatest asset.

In 1901, Queen Victoria died and Walter Elias Disney was born. It marked the end of the colonial British Empire and the beginning of the American rise to being both a super-power and a technological trend setter.

The cartoon as we know it now was already alive and well and had been since its birth in 1841, with the first publication of the British satirical magazine Punch. Motion pictures were now in their teens, sound and color still had another generation to go. And the first animated cartoon was not going to make its debut till 1908.

When Walt and his older brother Roy started an animation studio in Kansas City, it is close friend and all-around technical wizard Ub Iwerks who is partnered with them.

On the returning journey home from visiting the double-crossing distributor who was handling their product at the time, Walt and his wife Lillian are determined to come up with a new cartoon character that they can not only call their own, but one that they actually can own! “Mortimer Mouse” is what Walt calls him, but Lillian talks him into calling their rodent savior “Mickey Mouse”.

The basic crude drawing that he made on the train, will soon be refined and defined by Iwerks, who besides being a much better animator was also a fast animator with an unassuming disposition that didn’t seek out credit or reward.

Being able to pick and surround himself with the right talented people at the right time, when he needed them the most, became the most single attribute that would define Walt Disney himself. Ambition and drive he had in abundance, but Walt was an “ideas” man. His brother Roy would be the one who was always faced with the task of making it financially happen.

Walt would always be dependent on others to physically turn his dreams or “ideas” into reality. Iwerks wasn’t just his top animator, he was also his most creative. To put it mildly, throughout the 1920’s Ub Iwerks was Disney animation.

There are many famous quotes from the classic play and subsequent film A Streetcar Named Desire. One is: I don’t want realism, I want magic. (Most people misremember it as: I don’t want reality, I want magic)

Some people have said that this blog reflects the romantic and sentimental side of Old Hollywood. Yes, we’ll agree we have that bent. So to even things up, we’re adding another voice. One which will not concentrate on the magic, but on the reality and psychology of movie making.

Let us introduce Graham Hill. Last year Graham wrote to us with a wonderful compliment: As someone who has spent my whole life in the movie/TV industry, 2 yrs. at MGM, 4 yrs. at EMI in England, 13 yrs. at Universal, and 25 yrs. at 20th Century-Fox… I can truly say you have a very fine website, well presented.

Naturally we were interested in learning more about this fellow. And he said: I have had various jobs in the business, at the same time of having been a studio historian for both Universal and Fox. Over the years I have written over 2,000 articles on just about every aspect and topic you can imagine.

So much that is known about HOLLYWOOD is basically untrue. What starts out as a made-up publicity story, seems to forever end up as published fact, and correcting it with the truth, no one wants to hear. The TCM fans can get pretty nasty over arguing about the smallest detail.

Anyway, I gave up on blogging, because like the line in John Ford’s ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence ‘– “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” you end up the bad guy in trying to tell people what actually happened, even if I was on that movie and witnessed it first-hand.

But, dear readers, we are happy to report that Graham has agreed to contribute to Classicmoviechat and give us a perspective we warmly embrace. His articles will appear Monday through Friday of next week.

All week so far we’ve paid homage to some of the Janes of the screen, and we end today with two of the sexiest ladies ever named Jane. Russell and Greer. They lit up the screen in the 1940s and 50s.

A longstanding Hollywood myth is that RKO mogul and notorious Hollywood womanizer Howard Hughes had spotted the 19-year-old Russell in 1940, in a chiropodist’s office where she was employed as an assistant, and hired her on the spot to star in Hughes production of The Outlaw, which introduced Russell’s cleavage to the world. (Bob Hope would thereafter introduce her as “the two and only.”)

As she dryly notes in My Paths & My Detours, her 1985 autobiography, what actually occurred is this: Jane had been doing some part time modeling in Hollywood for a photographer, Tom Kelley – no nude calendar stuff but lots of outdoorsy ski clothing and other sports-related shots. Posing in front of the camera in a demure bathing suit, Jane “never felt so vulnerable in my life. You see for years I’d been so skinny that the boys in school called me ‘bones.’”

But when the pictures came back, Jane was“thrilled. I didn’t look so skinny after all.

One of those shots Kelley took wound up in the possession of a hustling agent by the name of Levis Green. He later explained that he had swiped Jane’s photo from Kelley’s office and, as he made his usual rounds of the studios, showed it to casting directors. No interest until Green showed her picture to a representative of Howard Hughes.

“She looks like the type,” the Hughes man barked. “Bring her in.”

This is how Jane Russell’s career spanning 24 movies over 27 years began. Along the way were some interesting pictures: 1948′s The Paleface opposite Bob Hope, 1952′s Macao with Russell sexily handling her male counterpart, Robert Mitchum (one of five pictures she appeared in that year), 1953′s Gentlemen Prefer Blonds famously teaming Russell with sister sexpot Marilyn Monroe).

Did she ever sleep with Hughes?

Jane said she found him likable, kooky and timid. I often hollered at Howard, and I think in a funny kind of way I scared him. Hughes would later confide to friends, that woman terrified me.

According to the actress’ 1984 autobiography, the powerful agent Lew Wasserman, who represented Jane at one point, asked her: “Look, are you sleeping with this guy or what?” A stunned Russell responded, ”No, Lew, my God! He’s my friend.”

Jane Greer’s experience with Hughes was not as amicable. Greer (pictured below) is, of course, the pivotal femme fatale costar of 1947′s Out of the Past. Film noir-author/critic Eddie Muller calls this movie spellbinding. It reconfigured genre cliches by investing them with depth and style.

Greer’s performance seemingly assured stellar status. But it didn’t happen. The reason is two words – Howard Hughes. He had brought her to RKO, and (as was his custom) took a romantic fancy to her offscreen before her second marriage to Edward Lasker (her first for one year had been to Rudy Vallee). Greer was not thrilled by his overtures.

A followup to Out of the Past was planned in 1949 titled The Big Steal. George Raft and Lizabeth Scott were envisioned for the leads. When Raft dropped out, Scott followed suit. Hughes decided to cast Mitchum for the lead despite the actor’s incipient problems with the law over a marijuana bust.

But Hughes in a retailatory mood was adamantly opposed to the casting of Greer opposite Mitchum. Hughes even threatened not to cast Greer in any more RKO titles. But after he became enmeshed in salvaging Mitchum’s valuable (to RKO) career, his pique at Greer lessened. She finally was cast in The Big Steal (only after other actresses turned it down).

The resulting picture, a crime-adventure set in Mexico, was directed by the efficient DonSiegel and costarred William Bendix refreshingly cast as a nasty thug. The Big Steal is a pleasant, workmanlike picture with a happy ending, yet.

Greer discovered that she was pregnant during filming with one of her three children with Lasker. By the end of the shooting she was beginning to show. She was in a family way both physically and in spirit.

The Big Steal made money at the box office, and reinforced RKO’s faith in Mitchum’s career despite his messy legal problems.

For Greer, it was another story. Her career went into a slump, but she didn’t appear to be particularly bothered by it.Family life seemed a lot more appealing.

Today’s “plain Janes” were two of the screen’s most venerable supporting players, JaneCowl and Jane Darwell (above). You’ve probably seen them so many times in various movies you’ve forgotten how good they were.

For example, Darwell rolled up a whopping 210 movie and tv credits over a career that lasted more than half a century. Character actresses were real workhorses in classic Hollywood, and Darwell certainly bears that out.

She had a broad, assertive acting style that caught your attention and befits a woman who aspired to be an opera singer before beginning her screen career acting in silent movie shorts. She appeared in such obscure films as 1939′s Gone With the Wind, 1943′s The Ox-BowIncident and (her last credit) 1964′s Mary Poppins.

She is probably best remembered for Grapes of Wrath basedon the John Steinbeck novel purchased for the movies by 20th Century Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck for $100,000.

It tells of an impoverished Oklahoma family migrating to California, and stars Henry Fonda in an Oscar nominated performance, and Darwell as Ma Joad, the family’s pillar-like matriarch. She won an Oscar for her unforgettable handling of the part. Darwell had a long life; she died at age 87 in 1967.

Cowl may be harder to spot and recall. (That’s her to the left with Barbara Stanwyck and John Lund in 1950′s No Man of Her Own.) She is distinctive because she was a successful playwright as well as a solid character actress.

Her screen output was much less than that of Cowell’s. And, her writing credits sometimes outshone her screen efforts. Cowl is the co-scripter of 1932′s Smilin’ Through, a weeper costarring Norman Shearer and Leslie Howard, which is based on her own play of the same title. (The movie was remade and updated in 1941 costarring Jeanette MacDonald and Brian Aherne.)

Cowl actually played the lead in a pair of silent films — 1915 The Garden of Lies and 1917′s The Spreeading Dawn — then stopped filmmaking for some three decades. She returned in the 1940′s as a supporting character actress (her movie credits encompass a total of less than 10 features). She became known as a skillful player of “lachrymose” parts.

A footnote: It is said that Cowl was the inspiration for the first name of another of our “Janes” — Jane Russell. More on her tomorrow. Stay tuned.

So did you know many of the films Jane Wyatt made before she met Robert Young? (Some of them were pretty big, and chocked with big stars.)

One thing is certain. Wyatt had a long career, stretching from her first movie (1934′s One More River, a melodrama about the wife of an abusive husband who looks for love aboard a cruise ship) to her final appearance in the Young Indiana Jones tv series in 1992.

Wyatt is also distinguished by her looks — a remarkable combination of aristocratic charm and sheer sexiness. That’s why Young (pictured above), the producer/co-owner of Father Knows Best, importuned Wyatt to accept the wifely role in that hit Fifties tv series.

Ok, let’s see how you did with our Jane Wyatt Quiz. As usual, to review the questions just scroll down to the blog below. Here we go:

1) Answer: a) True. Wyatt really did give an initial thumbs down to the maternal role of Margaret Anderson on Father Knows Best because, she said, I’d been doing a lot of live tv drama in which I was the star. I didn’twant to be just a mother. PS: Wyatt won three consecutive Emmy Awards for her performances in the “just a mother” role.

2) Answer: d) Gentlemen Prefer Blonds.

3) Answer: b) False. Wyatt was a liberal politically who took genuine career risks by speaking out against the anti-Communist investigations of Hollywood in the Fifties.

4) Answer: b) Wyatt expressed her disappointment that the largely pacifist elements of Lost Horizon were removed during World War II. All that was cut because they were trying to inspire those G.I.s to get out there and go ‘bang! bang! bang!’ which sort of ruined the film.

5) Answer: Sorry. This is another of our trick questions. Wyatt appeared onscreen with ALL four male stars: None But the Lonely with Cary Grant; Boomerang with DanaAndrews; Our Very Own with Farley Granger; and Task Force with Gary Cooper.

Yes, Father Knows Best – the prototypical family sitcom, which scored on the three major American tv networks in the 1950′s — made her a household name and everybody’s favorite Mom. (She played costar Robert Young’s wife and mother of three children.)

But Jane Wyatt was before her prime time tv success a movie star.

Granted that the bulk of an amazingly durable career of nearly 60 years — Wyatt lived a long time; she died in 2006 at age 96 — was spent on television. But make no mistake. Wyatt was part of some pretty big pictures in the Thirtes and Forties.

In many ways Wyatt seem to personally exemplify the classy maternal character she is now renowned for. Although, she said, I never vacuumed at home wearing my pearls. Nonetheless, Wyatt came from a wealthy family, attended private schools and a “Seven Sisters” college (Barnard), and was married for nearly 65 years to her one and only husband.

Ok, let’s see how much you known about Jane Wyatt, the first of this week’s “Janes” — plain and otherwise. As usual, questions today and answers tomorrow. Here we go:

1) Question: Although Wyatt is best known today for her wifely role on Father Knows Best, she initially turned down the part when it was first offered to her. a) True; or b) False.

3) Question: A devout Catholic, Wyatt was as well a devout political conservative. a) True; or b) False.

4) Question: Wyatt’s most famous movie role was probably in 1937′s Lost Horizon directed by Frank Capra and costarring Ronald Colman. Yet she had a serious personal reservation about the picture. Why? a) She disliked Capra’s controlling ways; b) The movie downplayed its pacifist theme during wartime; c) Colman had bad breath; or d) All of the above.

5) Question: Which leading male star did NOT make a movie with Wyatt? a) Cary Grant; b) Dana Andrews; c) Farley Granger; or d) Gary Cooper.

There’s no doubt the James Dean became and has remained a star even though he only made 3 major films in his brief lifetime. Can you name them?

And on the distaff side we feel Mae West made a lasting impact with the fewest number of film releases, 12 features from 1932′s Night After Night to 1978′s Sextette. Such a big name for so little output. Can you name some of the intervening pictures?

On the musical side there is the silver-toned Gordon MacRae, who appeared in just 19 features including, as we pointed out earlier this week, the film versions of two of the most successful musicals ever staged. Can you name them?

Give the above questions a try, and also let us know your selection as the biggest star with the fewest movie appearances?

The back-to-back deaths of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher last month has made us think of other Mother/Daughter stars from the Golden Era. Of course the best known duo are Judy and Liza. (Note: No last names needed) But there are others.

Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, Jayne Mansfield and Mariska Hargitay, TippiHedren and Melanie Griffiith come immediately to mind. We’re sure you can come up with other examples.

Here’s a notable one. Although she’s not achieved the success of her mother, Isabella Rossellini (pictured above) followed Ingrid Bergman onto the silver screen. How did they get on as Isabella was growing up? Were things as volatile as in the Fisher-Reynolds relationship?

Inspired by the excellent 2015 documentary Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words, which concerns her private life including her ways with her own children, we get at least a clue about how Ingrid interacted with her budding actress daughter.

It’s helpful to know that Bergman was married three times: in succession to Dr. Petter Lindstrom, to Italian director RobertoRossellini and to Swedish theatrical producer Lars Schmidt. Among her affairs was an extended romance with world famous war photographer RobertCapa.

Bergman’s four children by her first two husbands are daughter Pia Lindstrom by the first; and Isotta, Isabella and Roberto by Rossellini. Recounted by each is a series of revealing memories of their famous mother.

It turns out that Bergman was generally an easy-going mom who genuinely enjoyed being with her children. If she had a Prussian streak, it showed itself in her profession. A real pussy cat at home.

Pia Lindstrom is forthcoming in the documentary about her feelings of regret that Ingrid wasn’t around much of the time. The children missed the presence of their mother. (Lindstrom, a former tv newscaster in New York, is easily the most articulate on this general subject).

Something that Isabella appreciated was Bergman’s “sense of adventure,” a powerful if not dominating influence in her life. Bergman never got over the fact that a “simple” Swedish girl could have had the international fame and notoriety that she had. She, to use a cliche, seized the moment.

“Adventure” was also a factor in her love life — she was not unknown to sometimes (not often) express mixed feelings about having had children at all.

Rossellini shares Ingrid’s sense of life as adventure. She became a supermodel by her late 20′s, and made her movie debut as a nun in 1976′s A Matter of Time, costarring her mother and Charles Boyer.

Since then Isabella, who turns 65 in June, has rolled up more than 80 movie and tv credits, perhaps most notably in 1986′s Blue Velvet, directed by former fiance DavidLynch. She has also worked her way through two marriages, the first from 1979 to 1982 to director Martin Scorsese.

These days, Rossellini (who has lived in the U.S. since 1979) has immersed herself in various tv projects and “the study of animal behavior.” She lives on a farm on Long Island, N.Y. She has also traveled extensively in connection with festival retrospectives and other public commemorations of her famous mother (who died in 1982).

Frank once was introduced to Rossellini some years back at the Cannes Film Festival. And although she says that in her heart of hearts she was an unabashed “pappa’s girl,” her physical resemblance to her mother was startling.

Despite starring in two of the screen’s most successful adaptations of Broadway hits as well as other notable musicals — especially those with Doris Day (above) which have held up well – Gordon MacRae is almost forgotten today by classic movie fans.

Why? That was the question posed in our blog last March 23 (STALWART STARS — Like Gordon MacRae). Just this month we received a belated reader response to that blog from Simone Higgins, which we’ll get to after making some general points about MacRae’s career.

As we initially wrote, it should immediately be said that MacRae was never really a star like Cary Grant, or even Errol Flynn. His output was puny by classic Hollywood standards (just 25 credits between 1948 to 1980.) And he never seriously attempted to bridge musical and dramatic roles.

It’s a true truism that musical comedy leading men (with the exception of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly) never made the big leagues. BUT musical comedy had its stalwart men — think Howard Keel, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor, andGordon MacRea.

You never heard much about his private life. (He was married twice, the first time for 26 years to actress Sheila MacRae, a union that produced four children including actresses Meredith and Heather.) Gordon and Sheila also appeared together professionally onstage and in night clubs.

You never heard rumors about his affairs or tales about his temperament. All the public knew about Gordon MacRrae was that he delivered fine performances in entertaining films. (He later went public with his battle with alcoholism in the Fifties. Decades later he suffered a stroke, and died of cancer in 1986 at age 64).

Most memorably, he starred in the film versions of two of Broadways biggest hits, 1955′s Oklahoma and 1956′s Carousel (along with Shirley Jones). In the latter, he famously replaced FrankSinatra who was the original choice for the role of Billy Bigelow.

He also starred with Doris Day in two classic musical comedies, 1951′s On Moonlight Bay, and 1953′s By The Light of the Silvery Moon, based on Booth Tarkington’s Penrod stories. The pair, who also costarred in 1950′s Tea For Two, 1950′s West Point Story and 1951′s Starlift, is one of the most popular but somehow unheralded screen couples of the Fifties.

Pretty much all of those films hold up beautifully today with great acting and production values.

Now to our new reader/correspondent, Simone Higgins. She contributes this about MacRae and Doris Day:

I understand (MacRae) and his wife… suffered serious financial trouble as a result the misconduct of Doris Days’ lawyer. Doris also suffered resulting in her having to engage in a long legal battle with (the same lawyer). If you want to find out more have a listen to the Doris Day episode on the free podcast Classic Hollywood MTC. The podcast can be found on ITunes, Stitcher, Tune-in and Castbox. It can also be accessed via the following link: